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Speaker 1: We think about aliens a lot, Brent, and I partly

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Speaker 1: because sound, light and frequency lives at that intersection of

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Speaker 1: Hollywood and UFOs, which means we do spend a fair

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Speaker 1: amount of time asking what aliens look like, particularly when

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Speaker 1: they cross over from witness reports and folklore and nightmare

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Speaker 1: fuel onto movie and television screens. As creatives, we do

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Speaker 1: know a fair amount about the phenomenon as people report

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Speaker 1: it and they say it's real, and we know the

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Speaker 1: familiar categories. If you think about it, it's the Big

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Speaker 1: Four first, of course, grays certainly, but also Nordic's mantids

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Speaker 1: and reptilians on screen. Of course, the menu gets even stranger.

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Speaker 1: Then you have xenomorph's, benevolent light beings, humanoids from another dimension,

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Speaker 1: aquatic intelligences, and the good old bug eyed monsters and

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Speaker 1: whatever else a writer, a director, a studio or a

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Speaker 1: special effects budget can dream up. But the journey from

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Speaker 1: the mind to the movie theater is rarely a straight line,

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Speaker 1: and it's almost never easy. I'll give you a case

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Speaker 1: in point. I learned that the hard way on my

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Speaker 1: first produced UFO movie, which we've talked about on this podcast.

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Speaker 1: It was called Official Denial which was the original film

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Speaker 1: that launched the Sci Fi Channel. Now, the script had

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Speaker 1: about as many UFO ideas as I could cram into

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Speaker 1: ninety minutes without requiring an actual forklift, But it also

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Speaker 1: had a captured gray in it. Because I was trying

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Speaker 1: to be authentic. That turned out to be my biggest mistake.

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Speaker 1: We had a modest budget to put it. Kindly, when

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Speaker 1: it came time to put that alien on screen, the

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Speaker 1: surviving gray called Doss was played by a fifteen year

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Speaker 1: old Australian dancer named Holly Brisly inside a rubbery alien suit.

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Speaker 1: And let me be clear, Holly gave it everything that

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Speaker 1: she could. This is not a story about her failing.

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Speaker 1: This is a story about the unforgiving nature of alien creation.

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Speaker 1: Because if the alien doesn't work, the mythology starts to collapse,

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Speaker 1: and audiences they can believe in majestic twelve or hidden basses,

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Speaker 1: recovered craft, often even time distortion, but only if the

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Speaker 1: being at the center of it all feels real. And

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Speaker 1: that's why today's conversation matters, because an alien is never

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Speaker 1: really just a creature effort. It's the answer to the

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Speaker 1: question that the whole story is asking. So today Brent,

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Speaker 1: and I have brought in a person who knows exactly

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Speaker 1: how hard that work is and who's triumphed at it

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Speaker 1: over and over. And Brent, let's talk about our guests,

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Speaker 1: and let's bring this man in and get into the art,

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Speaker 1: the science, and even the terror of the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: and talking about what it means to make an alien.

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Speaker 2: I'm Brent Friedman. Years ago, a family friend who became

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Speaker 2: a cabinet member in the Reagan administration just closed to

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Speaker 2: me that aliens are real, They're here, and he'd seen them.

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Speaker 1: I'm Bryce's Abel. Later, when we were producing Dark Skies,

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Speaker 1: an NBCTV series about an alien invasion, we were approached

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Speaker 1: by men who said they were from the Office of

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Speaker 1: Naval Intelligence and they wanted to give us inside information

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Speaker 1: in exchange for access to our show.

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Speaker 2: We didn't take that deal, but we have never stopped

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Speaker 2: thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: That's why we do this podcast. We're working out ideas

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Speaker 1: in real time about how Hollywood is portrayed aliens and

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Speaker 1: why every.

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Speaker 2: Episode is different because there are so many questions.

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Speaker 1: We're looking for answers. It's an active investigation. Let's do

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Speaker 1: this together, all right.

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Speaker 2: This is a very exciting episode for me because one

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Speaker 2: of my favorite parts of the process of development is

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Speaker 2: taking those ideas that we put on the page and

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Speaker 2: talking with an actual artist who's going to bring our

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Speaker 2: imagination to life. It's always a fun negotiation, if you will,

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Speaker 2: trying to figure out how those words can become actual

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Speaker 2: living things that fit within the budget and the schedule.

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Speaker 2: But before I go any further, I want to introduce

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Speaker 2: to you today our guest who is one of the

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Speaker 2: absolute rock stars of Hollywood. He's definitely one of the

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Speaker 2: best special effects experts that I've ever had the privilege

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Speaker 2: of knowing for three decades, mind you, and we even

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Speaker 2: got to work a few times together. Todd Masters is

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Speaker 2: the founder of Master's Effects, which has a long list

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Speaker 2: of credits ranging from look Who's Talking to Star Trek

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Speaker 2: First Contact, to Tales from the Crypts the TV series

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Speaker 2: to Stargate SG one, and of course Brice our TV

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Speaker 2: series Dark Skies. Unfortunately, that quick rundown is not going

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Speaker 2: to do Todd justice. We need a full episode to

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Speaker 2: go over his long list of credits. But let me

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Speaker 2: just say this, Todd Masters is an innovator and an

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Speaker 2: Emmy Award winner, and most importantly a real good dude

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Speaker 2: who I'm proud to call my friend.

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Speaker 1: Wow, Hey, Todd, don't.

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Speaker 2: I got him? I got him blushing.

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Speaker 3: That's exactly what I was get some some foundation on.

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Speaker 3: Actually it's not thirty, it's forty, if you can believe it. Oh,

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Speaker 3: but he is just about to be forty years old.

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Speaker 3: I've actually been doing this twelve, so that's more like

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Speaker 3: forty six years or something. Did you say twelve? Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I started with us twelve.

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Speaker 1: Hey, Todd, Sorry, in all those years, how many monsters

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Speaker 1: and aliens have you created? How what's the number.

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Speaker 3: At I'm possible to remember it?

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Speaker 1: Or is it a dozens?

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Speaker 3: Or is it it's well in the many hundreds. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's We've been going strangely since the eighties. Brent. I

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Speaker 3: think we met on The Resurrected, which we were doing

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Speaker 3: in the late eighties. Yes, we were both five years old,

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Speaker 3: I recall.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I was three. I think you were five.

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Speaker 3: Or yeah, you didn't have to be. But no, magically

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Speaker 3: a practical effects company still beats pretty strong. So it's

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Speaker 3: shocks even me the numbers like you've seen start Trek

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Speaker 3: First Contact is going to be thirty in November, feels

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Speaker 3: to the Crypts streaming right now. Those episodes are really old,

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Speaker 3: so it's just wild.

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Speaker 2: But we have Dark Skies is coming up on our

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Speaker 2: thirty year anniversary this year.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what do we want to do?

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Speaker 2: So the number I want to go back to is twelve.

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Speaker 2: I know things are done differently in Canada, but how

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Speaker 2: did you start working in special effects when you were

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Speaker 2: twelve years old?

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Speaker 3: I was a really big kid, had a really deep voice,

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Speaker 3: kind of like that, and I was just fascinated by

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Speaker 3: Ray Harry Housen movies and these animated cyclopses and every Sunday.

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Speaker 3: This is before we had recording mechanisms this. I don't

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Speaker 3: even think there was satellites beaming this end. It was

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Speaker 3: probably just Yarn and the Tin Cans. But we used

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Speaker 3: to watch Sunday Sci Fi Channel. I'm sure you guys

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Speaker 3: did too. I saw in the magazines Ray Harryhausen and

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Speaker 3: a couple other names, and somehow I got keyed in

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Speaker 3: that there's these things called phone books, and so I

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Speaker 3: started I went to the Seattle Library and I pulled

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Speaker 3: out the London phone book. Hey there's Ray Harry not

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Speaker 3: many Ray Harryhausen's, and so I started calling him and

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Speaker 3: a couple others like Will Vinton and Tom Burman, just

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Speaker 3: because there was no Internet, there was no real there

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Speaker 3: wasn't even many books, and so I'm sure I called

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Speaker 3: Harry Hausen Ont like three in the morning. I didn't

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Speaker 3: undertand type songs, and so that kind of started this pursuit.

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Speaker 3: And I looked in the local phone book for animation

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Speaker 3: and stuff, and I found these guys called the Hill

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Speaker 3: Brothers cartoons down the worst part of Seattle. Took the

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Speaker 3: bus down there at twelve, just talked my way into

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Speaker 3: getting a gig, and we were doing an educational film

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Speaker 3: about birth control. And I was this kid that my

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Speaker 3: parents hadn't told me anything yet, right, So all of

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Speaker 3: a sudden, I'm painting sperm and I'm painting prophylactics and

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Speaker 3: uteruses as cartoons. And so I got a pretty good

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Speaker 3: education that summer, and by the time I was thirteen,

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Speaker 3: I became head of the department, which was pretty funny.

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Speaker 3: And I just was like this kind of talker. I

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Speaker 3: could talk myself into almost anything. And there was another

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Speaker 3: thing going on downtown Seattle at this lab called Alpha Cine,

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Speaker 3: which the Hill Brothers told me about. That's where we

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Speaker 3: were having our film process. I went down there and

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Speaker 3: I talked myself into an effects job in the optical

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Speaker 3: training department. I started cleaning inner positives and shit like this.

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Speaker 3: One day film comes through sideways and I go to

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Speaker 3: my boss what is this And he's like, oh, that's

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Speaker 3: Star Wars too. I'm like what And it was Empire

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Speaker 3: Strikes Back. And so I started working at Empire Strikes

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Speaker 3: Back at twelve or something, I don't know, Wow, and yeah,

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Speaker 3: it was a blue screen of snowspeeder se.

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Speaker 1: For the people who are listening who may not know,

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Speaker 1: tell us who Ray Harryhausen is was.

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Speaker 3: Mister Harry Housen is well known in our world as

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Speaker 3: kind of the godfather of horror and science fiction effects

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Speaker 3: and animation. He did a lot of aliens in fact,

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Speaker 3: so back in like the fifties and the forties he

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Speaker 3: got to start with making these little black and whites

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Speaker 3: like Mighty Joe Young and there's a great one Earth

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Speaker 3: versus the Flying Saucers where all these Saucerers smash into Washington, DC.

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Speaker 3: He's probably best known for the Seventh Voyage of Simbad

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Speaker 3: effects and the Cyclops early technicolor. This is model animation

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Speaker 3: so it was a puppet that they had jointed and

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Speaker 3: they shoot a frame, he'd move at shooter. Frame went

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Speaker 3: all the way up to Clash of the Titans. But

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Speaker 3: he's known now as kind of the guy that opened

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Speaker 3: the door for George Lucas and Phil Tippa and Spielberg

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Speaker 3: for this kind of upgraded fantasy because before him, there

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Speaker 3: was really just people in bad suits.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask you this when you just mentioned that

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Speaker 1: it's been hundreds of these creatures, whether they be alien

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Speaker 1: or monsters, that you've been involved in creating. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: many of the directors are producers or writers that you

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Speaker 1: work with are like Brent and I we were like, hey,

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Speaker 1: we need something completely original, but it's got to be

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Speaker 1: super authentic and no one's ever have seen anything like

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Speaker 1: this before, but it needs to be familiar. So I'm

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Speaker 1: sure you've had that conversation many times when.

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Speaker 3: You're talking every day. Yeah, pretty much.

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Speaker 1: So when you're creating all these different let's call them

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Speaker 1: aliens for now, let's separate the aliens from the monsters.

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Speaker 1: Although they're all kind of nhi, aren't they they're non

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Speaker 1: human intelligence of some kind. But when you're creating an

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Speaker 1: alien and somebody says, give me something different, Where do

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Speaker 1: you start. What's the process by which you identify how

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Speaker 1: to give somebody something that unique.

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Speaker 3: Let's really changed over the last few years with AI.

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Speaker 3: A lot of people are doing like AI concepts right now.

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Speaker 3: Back in the day, more like the nineties and the

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Speaker 3: early two thousand and I still do it. We generally

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Speaker 3: look at the room. We try to figure out tonality,

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Speaker 3: what is the thing that we're trying to create. If

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Speaker 3: it is an alien show, I might go looking for

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Speaker 3: whatever the alien group is, for things that look like

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Speaker 3: they're going to inspire me, inspire the direct and other people.

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Speaker 3: And I look for hits because it's I'm not a

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Speaker 3: big fan of AI and everything. We still do here

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Speaker 3: and there for concepts, but it's better to use your

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Speaker 3: human powers to try to source out the samples. I

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Speaker 3: am not a fan of starting the process with, oh,

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Speaker 3: this has to be a makeup or this has to

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Speaker 3: be a long armed guy in a suit. I don't

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Speaker 3: think that really helps the film in some cases, maybe,

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Speaker 3: but I find it better to just feel through the

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Speaker 3: void a little bit with these helpers like the style

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Speaker 3: guides and maybe Sama and lots of conversation, just.

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Speaker 1: As an example, a lot of people who are listening

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Speaker 1: to this podcast have gone on the journey with me

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Speaker 1: and Brent where we walk them through the Dark Sky's experience,

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Speaker 1: and so a lot of them have gotten either they've

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Speaker 1: seen clips from Dark Skies or if they were lucky,

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Speaker 1: they bought an old copy of the DVD set or whatever.

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Speaker 1: For those people who are saying, wait, there's these grays

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Speaker 1: in Dark Skies? How did we make the grays? Were

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Speaker 1: they puppets? Were they people? Were they cgi? How would

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Speaker 1: you describe the Dark Skies aliens?

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Speaker 2: They're saying, I'm going to back that up just a

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Speaker 2: little bit, okay, because that's all a fascinating explanation. But Bryce,

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Speaker 2: if you remember one of the things that we threw

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Speaker 2: at Todd and we were those director like saying we

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Speaker 2: want something totally different, totally new. Our whole approach was

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Speaker 2: we had read stories that there were small grays and

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Speaker 2: there were larger grays, and so we were like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: instead of having two grays, what if we take the

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Speaker 2: idea that it's the same creature that just has the

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Speaker 2: capacity to stand up and expand yes night. And so

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Speaker 2: we came at Todd with that and I'm sure you

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Speaker 2: were like, wait, what, So with that in mind, take

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Speaker 2: us through the process, if you you can run going

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Speaker 2: back thirty years, What was it like trying to design

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Speaker 2: these dark sky's grays that we threw at you.

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Speaker 3: Well, first of all, we love that idea just because

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Speaker 3: we hadn't seen it before and we were going into

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Speaker 3: this project with this certain familiarity in the design style,

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Speaker 3: meaning that if you recall, we made early mccketts, which

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Speaker 3: are little clay design sculpts. Yes, we did a very

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Speaker 3: traditional if I can use my fingers there, traditional gray

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Speaker 3: just standing there. I think Jeremy Iyello sculpted at this

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Speaker 3: mccutt And then we did another one where it was

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Speaker 3: that all stretched out just again feel in the dark

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Speaker 3: or we close, is this what we want and do

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Speaker 3: it at small scale? Back then we did it in

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Speaker 3: small scale like that just because it's easier to fix

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Speaker 3: and change. We love the idea of the stretchy stuff

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Speaker 3: because we were just right there on switching into this

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Speaker 3: new material cult normal plastic, which was a high temperature,

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Speaker 3: vinally kind of substance. It wasn't silicone, it was it

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Speaker 3: was actually sex toy material that one of our artists

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Speaker 3: had discovered he had made a bunch of frogs for

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Speaker 3: that one Tom Cruise movie This shit Magnolia. Yeah that

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Speaker 3: all fell down. Oh you know who that was. That

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Speaker 3: was Steve Johnson that did that stuff. He had kind

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Speaker 3: of done some groundwork already and found this really amazingly

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Speaker 3: elastic stuff. So we started sourcing it. It was sextuy

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Speaker 3: material and the makers of Fleshlight, if you want to

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Speaker 3: get there, And so we started using that stuff for

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Speaker 3: all the stretchy stuff. It was super stretchy. I mean

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Speaker 3: we could plasticize it and stretch it around the building.

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Speaker 3: It was crazy. And it was also translucent so we

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Speaker 3: can get some nice backlighting, which monsters always loved that.

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Speaker 3: So we were encouraged by that, and it was almost

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Speaker 3: like you fed into our plan because we wanted to

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Speaker 3: kind of pursue more of that. As far as the

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Speaker 3: rest of the design and all that, we were totally

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Speaker 3: going off your guys leads. I don't remember every specific,

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Speaker 3: but so there was on set practical puppets that we

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Speaker 3: had a couple one that just had a lot of

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Speaker 3: animatronics in the face, usually remote control, and that was

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Speaker 3: with that really weird translucent sex toyskins, and then we

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Speaker 3: had another one that did the change. Oh, and then

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Speaker 3: we and these were really full bodies and we had

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Speaker 3: some really funky hands and they were pretty cool. They

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Speaker 3: seemed to work for the most part. This is back

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Speaker 3: in the mid late nineties, where we were pretty good

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Speaker 3: amatronics at that point, but we had never pulled that

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Speaker 3: kind of material and we were doing pneumatics all sorts of.

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Speaker 3: We were crazy back then, but we got some cool stuff.

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Speaker 3: There was also digital ones that kind of were also

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Speaker 3: part of the equation, and we'd often have meetings to

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Speaker 3: figure out where why ends and the other begins.

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Speaker 2: Are you talking about practical and digital?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So they would shoot clean plates, which is basically

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Speaker 3: shooting all the actors except for the grays, and then

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Speaker 3: they would digitally create a model, light it in the

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Speaker 3: computer and composite it onto that clean plate. And that

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Speaker 3: worked good for walks because we couldn't really do a walk.

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Speaker 3: They worked good for wide shots. Close ups were pretty

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Speaker 3: challenging back then for digital assets, so that's usually where

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Speaker 3: our stuff came in. But yeah, I think I'd have

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Speaker 3: to watch the show again. Practical effects, but they're kind

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Speaker 3: of they seem to last a little longer than that

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Speaker 3: era's digital effects.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of the skies, you just described the dark s

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Speaker 1: eyzed ones, which, by the way, we'll probably show these

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Speaker 1: in the video version of this. Brent I recalled that

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Speaker 1: we had an artist sketch out some beautiful artwork about yes,

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Speaker 1: these grays could do, and you saw them punched over

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Speaker 1: with their legs and then expanding, and so I think

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Speaker 1: we probably dropped those on Todd and people watching this

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Speaker 1: or seeing them now. But Todd, when you also did

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Speaker 1: speaking of skies, you did Falling Skies, if I'm not mistaken,

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Speaker 1: did you not?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: All right, years later, at least more than ten years.

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Speaker 1: You've had a whole lot of new tools in your

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Speaker 1: belt at that time. What did those tools allow you

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Speaker 1: to do in Falling Skies that you weren't able to

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Speaker 1: do in Dark Skies?

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Speaker 3: Falling Skies was pretty interesting for us because they had

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Speaker 3: shot a pilot in Toronto and we didn't quite have

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Speaker 3: our Toronto shop up and running yet, and so they

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Speaker 3: did the pilot without us. You got to remember this,

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Speaker 3: Falling Skies was a Spielberg show. Yeah, after the pilot,

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Speaker 3: I got called by those guys, come on down to ambling.

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Speaker 3: We want to talk to you about doing more practical stuff.

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Speaker 3: Now we're going to be in Vancouver. Rarely do we

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Speaker 3: hear this one, even back then. We want to do

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Speaker 3: less digital and more practical. You're the guy to do this.

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Speaker 3: You know how to mix things, so you know, music

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Speaker 3: to my ears. I hadn't seen anything until I went

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Speaker 3: down there to a bunch of people in the ambulance

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Speaker 3: office and they showed me the pilot and say their

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Speaker 3: skinner design sucked. It was so bad, and so I

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Speaker 3: had to find this way. I didn't even have a

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Speaker 3: gig yet, I had to find this way to tell

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Speaker 3: them fucking Steven Spielberg, and it was like, I think

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Speaker 3: it would be better because the original design had the

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Speaker 3: big buck teeth. It was hilarious. You probably want to

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Speaker 3: do this and that and maybe changes goddamn buck teeth.

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Speaker 3: I guess that sort of got them excited about us,

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Speaker 3: because we weren't afraid to say, look, you got buck

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Speaker 3: teeth at a show and it's going to kill you.

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Speaker 3: And we redesigned the skinners. And as we got more

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Speaker 3: comfortable with the producers and showrunners on the show during

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Speaker 3: the making of it, new characters come along and theirs too.

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Speaker 3: Right the mas. So, yeah, I have a whole array

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Speaker 3: of gas station cups with all our characters on each

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Speaker 3: one of them. It's pretty cute. But yeah, they started

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Speaker 3: doing the max. I don't know if this was like

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Speaker 3: following any uphiology or anything, but they did all this

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Speaker 3: stuff and then they brought in Doug Jones to be

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Speaker 3: playing this character called CoA Cheese And there was a

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Speaker 3: lot going on during there. We were doing skinners, we're

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Speaker 3: doing makeup effects, we're juggling other shows trying to figure

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Speaker 3: out what this thing is going to be. The Doug

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Speaker 3: thing shows up and they have this concept that I

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Speaker 3: also not my job, but I view I vetoed it

354
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Speaker 3: saying it was gonna suck, and this was the original

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Speaker 3: digital they're planning to do it digitally, and it was

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Speaker 3: just it looked like a digital muppet. So we pitched

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Speaker 3: a hybrid way. Since it was Doug, we knew Doug

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Speaker 3: would really bring it.

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Speaker 2: Who's Doug again for the audience?

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Speaker 3: Oh sorry. Doug Jones is the pre eminent sup performer actor.

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Speaker 3: I would think he's probably more an actor that he's

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Speaker 3: a suit guy. It's hard to describe a talent like that.

363
00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 3: Is he's a sweaty suit guy, but he does a

364
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Speaker 3: lot of suits. He works with Ilmobile too quite a bit.

365
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Speaker 3: His resume is crazy long, and so we got him

366
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Speaker 3: involved in following Skuys to play this character called Coachese.

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Speaker 3: Everybody loved Doug and it really should have been a

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Speaker 3: Doug character. So we figured out a way to digitally

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Speaker 3: slave his blinks and his brows and his little face

370
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Speaker 3: breathings and all that stuff with his voice track. It

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Speaker 3: was really very innovative by our team, and we started

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Speaker 3: doing several seasons of practical and digital and mixing them together. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: that's kind of going way out there. One thing I

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Speaker 3: want to say about Doc and the character Go Cheese,

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Speaker 3: and I didn't realize this until you guys started doing

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Speaker 3: the Spielberg stuff, the character that they designed for Night Skies,

377
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Speaker 3: which was the pre et but Alien's Bad Story, which

378
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Speaker 3: was designed by Rick Baker oddly another huge makeup effects guy. Dude,

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Speaker 3: and I got to say, there is a similarity between

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Speaker 3: CoA Cheese and Night Sky's character, just in the way

381
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Speaker 3: all the forms, and I had never seen it until

382
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Speaker 3: you guys started talking about this, and the Toby thing

383
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Speaker 3: kind of got my ears perked a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, did you get to know Toby Hooper?

385
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Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, yeah, you know.

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Speaker 1: Toby Hooper told Brent that Steven Spielberg told him that

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Speaker 1: he had been read in he knew things. Is how

388
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Speaker 1: Toby put it. Did he say something they told Steven

389
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Speaker 1: to do a deal and he was spoke in a

390
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Speaker 1: cigar when he said that you've worked with Spielberg, you've

391
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Speaker 1: assessed him personally, as have Brent, and I do you now?

392
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Speaker 1: Spielberg denies it and Toby says it happened. Where do

393
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Speaker 1: you come down on that one?

394
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Speaker 3: I don't think Toby has any reason to lie. And

395
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Speaker 3: the way I heard it from him was that he

396
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:08,719
Speaker 3: and Steven had been buddies for so long and Steven

397
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Speaker 3: had just brought it up casually that there was some

398
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 3: sort of arrangement for close encounters. I think it was,

399
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Speaker 3: and I don't know if it was earlier, like night

400
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Speaker 3: skies or whatever. I just I'm following the popular knowledge

401
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 3: of night skies. But yeah, I have it in my

402
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:28,600
Speaker 3: head in Toby's voice that he had mentioned it, and

403
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,000
Speaker 3: I don't think it was with you guys, but it

404
00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 3: could have been, because we were really Toby was our

405
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,880
Speaker 3: buddy was. Actually, Toby just keeps coming up lately. He's

406
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 3: like a spirit. I've been talking to some other friends

407
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 3: of mine from the Tales of the Crypt group that

408
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,440
Speaker 3: they just brought up Toby and how he's just there.

409
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 3: He was a very powerful Texan, a good director like

410
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 3: that because he could really bark, and we liked that

411
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 3: a lot with him. He was very much a non

412
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Speaker 3: bullshit guy. I don't remember Toby bullshit. He was very specific.

413
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 3: I can tell you a story after story where he

414
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 3: ramed somebody out, or he took a stand on something

415
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 3: that wasn't accurate. He was not a bullshit guy. Spielberg

416
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 3: I don't know as well, but I also get that

417
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 3: same impression that he doesn't have time for bullshit. That

418
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 3: it just why would you, why would you even bring

419
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 3: it up?

420
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Speaker 2: Yeap, Look, I want to go back to you mentioned

421
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:29,360
Speaker 2: the movie that we met on, which was The Resurrected,

422
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Speaker 2: and I think just as a testimony to how realistic

423
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 2: your effects can look back then, even back then, this

424
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 2: was what like eighty nine eighty seven.

425
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Speaker 3: I think we shot at in eighty nine, okay, and

426
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Speaker 3: I think it came out in ninety one.

427
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 2: So just to tee this up a little bit and

428
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 2: then I'll let you tell the story. This was an

429
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 2: HP Lovecraft adaptation that Dan O'Bannon directed. I've spoken about

430
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 2: this project a couple times on the show, and Todd

431
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 2: was in charge of the special effects, and this was

432
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 2: being shot in Canada back in eighty nine, and something

433
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:14,679
Speaker 2: crazy happened with the special effects. Tell the story.

434
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 3: Which day you want me to start with? There's this, well,

435
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 3: a couple of things. Congratulations, the movie is thirty five

436
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 3: years old, June one. It was crazy phenominal. Yeah, I

437
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 3: think it was filmed on leather. It's so damn long ago.

438
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 3: It definitely was on film. I could tell you all

439
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 3: sorts of stuff about that. But one of the locations

440
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,719
Speaker 3: we were filming was this little creek and it was

441
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 3: the flashback dream sequence to Victorian Ages.

442
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 2: Or whatever, the seventeen hundreds or Seen.

443
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 3: Sixteen, and so all this cast was in costumes. We

444
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 3: had the old house. It was beautifully done, and the

445
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 3: whole scene is this kid looking into the creek and

446
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 3: seeing body parts floating down like a horrific nightmare. And

447
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 3: we had made these fucking things that part these things

448
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 3: that were really awful, and the torso and a bunch

449
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 3: of several arms and just all sorts of things. The

450
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 3: floor effects. Guys like, I've got to string him up

451
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 3: to wire, so once we throw him down the creek,

452
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 3: we could reel them back in. And we've got to

453
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 3: take two and reel them back in and take three. Okay,

454
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 3: that's a smart idea. So he rigged up I think

455
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 3: it was like a dozen fishing reels, not necessarily the rod,

456
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 3: but the reel on piano wire, and he did that. Well.

457
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: I don't even know how this story ends, guys, but

458
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: this sounds so bad. It's worse.

459
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 3: Anyway. This was Sunday when he rigged it. Sunday night,

460
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 3: this big storm came through. We show up Monday to

461
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 3: shoot this little creek and it is a raging river,

462
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 3: is just going out of control. But show must go on.

463
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 3: We set up cameras, we roll it. We throw body

464
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 3: parts down the raging river, and everybody's like, great, okay,

465
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 3: take two. They start railing back the things, and one

466
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 3: by one, being like jaws, all the body parts float away.

467
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 3: And I'm like, it's not like we flew up the

468
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 3: Canada with a carton or you know, crate full of

469
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 3: these things. We got to go after those. So I

470
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 3: steal a boat. I jumped in this little dinghy that

471
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 3: I go after him down this raging river and I

472
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 3: almost got there. Then the boat flooded. Fortunately there was

473
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 3: some safety people there that kept me from drowning. And anyway,

474
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,640
Speaker 3: life goes on. A couple a week later, we get

475
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 3: some cops calling, of course, because some teenagers had reeled

476
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 3: in a torso. They were at the Fraser River fishing,

477
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,919
Speaker 3: just fishing, yeah, and they reeled in a torso, and

478
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 3: so they heard we were shooting upstream and they found us.

479
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 3: They had told a bunch of tabloids that we had

480
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 3: done this, and so it was all over the acquire

481
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 3: all these things. And we didn't get busted. We got

482
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 3: kind of severely reprimanded. Turns out my mom knew the

483
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 3: corner got away. But yeah, it's always who you know.

484
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 3: It's always yeah, isn't it true? So yeah, that was

485
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 3: just one of many moments on that film.

486
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: Hey Todd, tell me what you know about the UFO phenomenon.

487
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: Are you a student of it? Because you've created aliens?

488
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: Do you pay attention to it and to what's going

489
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: on in the with the Congress and all that stuff,

490
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: or do you keep your distance from it? What's your take.

491
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 3: That's a great question, which I've actually been thinking about

492
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 3: a lot after listening to your guys' shows, which, by

493
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 3: the way, I think your show is great. I I'm

494
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 3: kind of one of these people that it really has

495
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 3: to be in front of me to believe it. I'm

496
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 3: not like a religious person that believes in some invisible

497
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 3: entity or anything. I'm spiritual, but I feel things. I

498
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 3: might believe it more, but I don't this kind of stuff.

499
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 3: I feel like I need to be very objective because

500
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 3: people always come to me with stuff, and I'm supposed

501
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 3: to spurt it out in a variety of flavors aliens.

502
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 3: There's certainly a lot of compelling stuff, especially lately, and

503
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 3: I saw some of that stuff with the pilot, the conversation.

504
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 3: I remember those guys coming through the production office.

505
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: So you actually can vouch for these guys coming to

506
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: see us at the Dark Sky.

507
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 3: I remember something really weird happen, and of course remember

508
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 3: us reshooting all that Ganglion stuff, and that confused me forever.

509
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 3: But I was also I don't know everything that's going

510
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 3: to go on at NBC, And then listening to your guys' stories, Brent,

511
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 3: you and I talking a few times going through shit.

512
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 3: I've participated in some other shadowy stuff, just being a

513
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 3: makeup effects guys to disguise Michael Jackson quite a bit,

514
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 3: just going out and world, and so that kind of

515
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 3: got me involved in disguising other people that I kind

516
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 3: of wonder about.

517
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 2: And so when you say disguising, go back to Michael Jackson.

518
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 2: So Michael Jackson, famous celebrity, wants to go out in public,

519
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 2: and you give him a complete new identity.

520
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. Actually, me and Steve Johnson, who was going to

521
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 3: be our other guest tonight, he and I did it.

522
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 3: We got hired. We started a little studio after the

523
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 3: whole Predator thing and a bunch of other things that

524
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 3: kind of shifted us in a new direction. So we

525
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 3: started doing Smooth Criminal. One of their producers came to

526
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 3: us and said, hey, Michael likes you guys, and he

527
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 3: does this with other makeup effects people. Because we're kind

528
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 3: of sort of still fresh back then, he said could

529
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 3: you do him some stuff? And so we started engaging

530
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 3: with Michael's personal handlers and Michael. We stole a face

531
00:30:54,760 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 3: cast from Rick Baker. We started doing different face is Michael.

532
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 3: He always wanted to be African American, so we started

533
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,719
Speaker 3: doing a few different African American faces, just different looks.

534
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 3: At one point I went to Michael and I said,

535
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 3: I think we could make a really good disguise if

536
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 3: we make you white. And he looks at me and

537
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 3: he goes, I don't know if I can get the

538
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 3: walk down. It's the funniest damn moment. But he was

539
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 3: a sweetheart. He was such a nice guy. I personally,

540
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 3: I think you need.

541
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: To do the rest of our podcast in his voice.

542
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 3: No, probably, But Michael was a he was a jumped.

543
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:37,479
Speaker 3: He was one of the best persons I've ever worked with.

544
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: Just to drive back to this, if you're challenged constantly

545
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: to create new, interesting alien creatures, if you will, one

546
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: of the things that we see a lot, and it's

547
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: certainly true in the Star Trek universe, most aliens, if

548
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: you will, look kind of humanoid, because you got to

549
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: have actors that are humans to play them, and so

550
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: you end up with the people that have one nose

551
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: and one mouth, two ears.

552
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 3: You usually have a piece of sushi right here.

553
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: But two wise, two arms, two legs right And have

554
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: you ever given that some thought is that part of

555
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: do you think that could be common in the universe?

556
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: That's not just describing human beings, but it could be

557
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: a kind of an archetype. The humanoid might be just

558
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: something that evolution spews up on other planets from time

559
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: to time. Are there other human beings out there, for example,

560
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: or humanoids rather in your view, because that's just something

561
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: that works. What's your take on that?

562
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 3: There's some good questions. I believe that you just said

563
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 3: that evolution is the great designer. That's just my belief.

564
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 3: I don't believe that there's a invisible spirit out there

565
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 3: that's sketching it out, or many iterations of the God,

566
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 3: et cetera, trying to offend. It's just my situation, my thoughts.

567
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 3: I've certainly seen some weird shit, which makes me definitely wonder,

568
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 3: you know, between art and science. You know, maybe there

569
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 3: is the joining of God. I don't know. I haven't

570
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 3: seen it. I haven't been there. I've been there a

571
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 3: little bit, but I think it's like you said, it's

572
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 3: the evolutionary process over millions of years. Like a river,

573
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 3: a river is not a straight line. It keeps bumping

574
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 3: into something, turning bumping into something turning. So in some

575
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 3: sense it feels like the two leg, two arm design

576
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 3: basic works pretty well. We can walk, we can run,

577
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,560
Speaker 3: we can jump, we can sit, but we got hands

578
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:45,959
Speaker 3: to grab things. So I think in some senses that

579
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 3: design works pretty well. It's tempting to continue to do it,

580
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 3: not just because we can shove Doug Jones in there,

581
00:33:55,480 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 3: but also it's just what the human is. We've only

582
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 3: evolved so far. In my ears, I've actually seen invisible

583
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 3: stuff that's actually invisible. I've seen all sorts of creatures

584
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 3: with different leg formats, like squids and Michael Rooker and

585
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 3: octopus of course jellyfish. There is a huge spectrum of

586
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 3: design that to me feels like it's there for a reason.

587
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 3: Is there because they've been trying it for so many

588
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 3: millions of years. They kept hitting something, resisting and moving

589
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 3: to something better, back and forth. Feels like we're still

590
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 3: evolving in the open.

591
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: I mentioned the Big Four, which are grays, which we've

592
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,320
Speaker 1: already talked about. You designed a version of the grays

593
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: for us, but the other four are mantids and Nordics

594
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: and reptilians. So just as I bet you've designed some

595
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 1: things like that. But if someone were to come to

596
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: you right now and go, Okay, here's the thing we

597
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 1: want the Big Four and they're all in a spaceship

598
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: together and they're talking to each other, would you a

599
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: try to just create something fresh and original from your

600
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: own head or would you be start reading up on

601
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: them and what the witness accounts say about it. So

602
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: how would you approach that? Would you say, I need

603
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: since these people are describing these things as real things,

604
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 1: my job is do you get close to that? Or

605
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: would you say screw that, this is Hollywood. I'm going

606
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: to make whatever works best for the movie. How would

607
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: you take that on?

608
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 3: I'd probably call you first, both you guys, give you

609
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 3: some encyclopedia hits. I'm serious. Like what I mentioned before,

610
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 3: it's like the design void, much like a writer's quest

611
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 3: into breaking story. It's lovely, No, it's you kind of

612
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:46,879
Speaker 3: have to take what you know of the environs, read

613
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 3: the room of what people are expecting, because there's always

614
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,720
Speaker 3: a certain level of that. And then I think also

615
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 3: doing so that's research, like talking to some people like

616
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 3: you guys would be amazing for that. But also I

617
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 3: do a lot of looking around on the web, just

618
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 3: to see what's out there. We reference stuff we've done before,

619
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 3: we reference with the creatives and the film want to

620
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 3: see or what they think it's near. And then I

621
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 3: think we kind of do a version of the second part,

622
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 3: which is say fuck at all, because sometimes the strangest

623
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 3: things will fall down from the skies and you'll have

624
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 3: a design that's fresh and unique for the story. It's tricky.

625
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 3: It's a little when you guys write a scene or

626
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 3: a script or a story or something like that, trying

627
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 3: to design the characters in dialogue and actions and stuff

628
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,920
Speaker 3: like that. No fat productions, right, You want every piece

629
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 3: to play a part. So I kind of do that

630
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:43,439
Speaker 3: in design, and I want to make sure that I'm

631
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:46,320
Speaker 3: designing this stuff right now, and it's throughout the script.

632
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 3: And I don't know how much this monster is in

633
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,760
Speaker 3: the writer's head, but it seems like a lot because

634
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 3: he keeps referencing his back or his gnarly hands or

635
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 3: his ripped open skin throughout this script, just little teasers,

636
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,720
Speaker 3: building blocks. So I definitely want to make sure that

637
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 3: those those items are in there too.

638
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 1: So hey, Brent, we're going to have to ask the

639
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: question of this man.

640
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,799
Speaker 3: How much do I look at you talk about JR.

641
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 3: Geeger because he's always a big part of this. Baby.

642
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: Listen, here's the thing, because this is something that Brent

643
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:22,400
Speaker 1: and I have spent a long time on this this

644
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:24,919
Speaker 1: podcast talking about, and I'm glad to hear that you've

645
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: heard a few of the episodes. So you know, because

646
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: you were at Dark Skis and also because you're a

647
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 1: podcast listener, that we were approached by someone who claimed

648
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: to be from the Office of Naval Intelligence and was

649
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 1: offering us some kind of deal to incorporate material into

650
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 1: Dark Skies as a form of slow drip disclosure. So question,

651
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 1: have you ever in your career been approached by anybody

652
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 1: who has government authority to work with the government or

653
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: to help the government, or be a part of anything

654
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: the government is doing in terms of preparing the public

655
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: for accepting the reality that we are not alone.

656
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 3: Every part of that until you ask that last accepting

657
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 3: the reality if we're not alone as a yes.

658
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: Let's go for the yes part. Expand on that, then

659
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: what can you share with this because I think what

660
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: we're trying to understand is we have been saying there's

661
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: a relationship between Hollywood and some of these issues and

662
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: anything that you can shed light on about that would

663
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 1: be very helpful to us. As we call this an

664
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: active investigation, which means when we get a guy like

665
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: you on screen, we say, what do you know? So

666
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 1: tell us what you know.

667
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 2: And just to preface something, our active investigation has already

668
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 2: turned up one director who was approached by a similar

669
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 2: deal and no, no, we're talking about Brett Leonard and

670
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 2: who did lawnmower Man And if you haven't heard that episode,

671
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 2: you should check it out. But the idea is that

672
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 2: we have enough evidence, anecdotal and even empirical now to

673
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 2: say that there is some sort of a relationship going

674
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 2: all the way back into the fifties between the government

675
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 2: and Hollywood with regards to UFOs. But we also know

676
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 2: that extends in other areas. Right if you look at

677
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 2: a movie like Ourgo, right, look at the story behind Ourgo,

678
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 2: the government and Hollywood work together, So we know that

679
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 2: relationship exists. And I guess, based on things you and

680
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 2: I have spoken about, I find it interesting that you

681
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 2: may have had a relationship that was tangential to what

682
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 2: we have or what someone was trying to make with us.

683
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was actually going to bring up ourgo,

684
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 3: so hopefully your viewers listeners know about the story. This

685
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 3: was a during the Iranian one of the many revolutions.

686
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 3: But this is back I think the seventies seventy nine,

687
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 3: and so they broke into the US embassy in Tehran

688
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 3: and broke everything, stole files, burn shit, abducted people. It

689
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:14,720
Speaker 3: was horrific and a small pile of the American people

690
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 3: in the embassy trucked out of the back door just

691
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 3: by fortune right before they got caught and went to

692
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 3: the Canadian embassy and where they hid for a period

693
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 3: of time in several weeks. Meanwhile, Ben Fleck, who is

694
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,240
Speaker 3: basically the lead character in the movie, I would recommend

695
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 3: reading the book. Their book kind of gets into a

696
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 3: better but movie's good too. He plays this lead investigator

697
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 3: who is in one of these kind of shadowy groups.

698
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 3: He goes to Hollywood and seize this gentleman by the

699
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 3: name of John Chambers. John Chambers is the Oscar winner

700
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 3: for Planet of the Apes, the original nineteen sixty eight movie,

701
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 3: and he did he was the early leader prosthetic effects.

702
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 3: He had also done a lot of disguise work. He

703
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 3: actually had he was a military guy. I think he

704
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 3: was eighty or was he Marines. I'll look it up.

705
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 3: But he was a military guy and he had actually

706
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 3: been well known. He was contracted to make the CIA's

707
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 3: first disguise kid. He had remember aesthetics in a little box.

708
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 3: I'll see if I could find you a photo of it.

709
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 3: But Chambers was one of a kind. In the movie,

710
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 3: he's played by John Goodman, which is perfect because he

711
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 3: was a big, very joyful, bouncy guy. But you could

712
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 3: tell Chambers was He's either fucking with you behind the scenes,

713
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 3: or some mills is going on. There's rumors that he

714
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 3: was involved in making some big Foots. Chambers legends go

715
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 3: on forever. He's no longer with us. I knew a

716
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,760
Speaker 3: lot of people that knew him very well. So in Argo,

717
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 3: they pretty much just lay it out for you. We

718
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 3: have a secret Hollywood group who helps us, and so

719
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 3: there's a number of these that are out there. If

720
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 3: you ever wonder why do some movies get such a

721
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 3: selection of military gag for their film, there's usually someone

722
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 3: behind the scenes that's making a deal with the military.

723
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 3: Let me read your script, make sure it doesn't make

724
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 3: us look like assholes, and we'll figure out a way

725
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 3: that we can help you, and we'll bring you a

726
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 3: bunch of actual military people too, if you like. So

727
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 3: these things do go on since World War Two. If

728
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 3: you recall, there's another great book called Five Came Back.

729
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 3: Not the movie because that movie sucks, but the book,

730
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 3: and it's all about John Ford. It's all about blanking

731
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 3: a bunch of folks that were in military units.

732
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 2: John Houston, John Houston.

733
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 3: John Houston. Yeah, the men, the real men, if you recall,

734
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:58,399
Speaker 3: they all came back from various departments, whatever you want

735
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:01,279
Speaker 3: to call them, and they got right installed into the

736
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:03,760
Speaker 3: studios Fox, MGT, Warner.

737
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 2: So they went right from war into Hollywood, right, Yeah,

738
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:11,800
Speaker 2: And if you ever prepared them for Hollywood, yeah, you think.

739
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 3: About especially not maybe recently, but in the not so

740
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 3: distant past. Going to set was like packing to go

741
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 3: for war. You got to have your kid, you got

742
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 3: to have all your shit. You're going to be away

743
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 3: from base. The food sucks. It's like camping. It's as hard,

744
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 3: if not harder. In many cases. Obviously, these guys are

745
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,280
Speaker 3: getting reality on them, but it is a grind sometimes

746
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:35,720
Speaker 3: to make a movie. And you'll notice that the movies

747
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 3: are organized by call sheets, production reports, all of these

748
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 3: things that kind of came right out of war organization. Interesting. Yeah,

749
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 3: it's trippy, So there is definitely a connection. I've been

750
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 3: in a couple of movies where I've overheard some people.

751
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 3: I'm suspicious now that I've learned this, and so I

752
00:43:56,440 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 3: have an eye on everything. And some movies are are

753
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 3: we fucking making this movie? It's usually because it's a

754
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:08,840
Speaker 3: military thing. It's probably propaganda. What's the biggest propaganda machine

755
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 3: out there? It's cinema, it's TV.

756
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: Have you personally ever worked on You mentioned that there

757
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 1: were other organizations that seem to coalesce around these kind

758
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 1: of issues. Have you ever worked with one of them

759
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: to assist the government? And if so, what were.

760
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 3: You doing and what were the other people doing there?

761
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 3: I really like your guys beards. I'm really just how

762
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 3: good you look after all these years.

763
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: You're a charming guy. But here's the thing that we've

764
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 1: been saying in our We say in our show that

765
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 1: we're bearing witness because there's a giant mosaic of contact

766
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: that's been put together over these decades since nineteen forty seven.

767
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 3: And then we.

768
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: Don't have the entire picture ourselves, but we have a

769
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: piece of the picture in that mosaic. We have that

770
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: one piece, and if enough of those pieces of the

771
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,320
Speaker 1: jigs saw puzzle come together, suddenly you've got the full picture.

772
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: So what's your piece of the jigsaw puzzle?

773
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 3: For us? There's so much I can't talk about.

774
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: And just you can't talk about Why not? If you

775
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:16,839
Speaker 1: can't talk about it, fine, but why can't you talk

776
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: about it?

777
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:21,400
Speaker 3: Meet me at Brand's house someday we'll put away. There's

778
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 3: a whole network out there that's watching us and listening

779
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 3: to us. It's been a few years for me, but

780
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 3: they're still around. It's not this kind of powerless, silent group.

781
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 3: We exist in a world that is per our ability

782
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 3: to consume it. I'm not one that's witnessed a bunch

783
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,319
Speaker 3: of real aliens running around or anything like that, at

784
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 3: least I don't think so. But I also I've had

785
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 3: some odd people come to my office because we're masters

786
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 3: of facts. We do weird shit. And like I said,

787
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 3: back when I was doing more disguise stuff, there was

788
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 3: a couple of people that can't through that I don't

789
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 3: really know what it was about, and they told me

790
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 3: that I shouldn't know about it. And that kind of

791
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 3: so I in some ways I became not trying to

792
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 3: compare myself to the great John Chambers, but we did

793
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 3: similar things. And there's some groups out there that they're

794
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:22,799
Speaker 3: not dangerous, they're actually helping, not just the US, but

795
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 3: other countries. A lot of countries do this stuff.

796
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: There's people that came around.

797
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:30,359
Speaker 3: What did they want you to do? Disguise them? Oh,

798
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 3: I see, yeah, Like I was doing this Jamie Kennedy

799
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 3: show called the Jamie Kennedy Experiment for a while, and

800
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 3: of course Michael and so we started learning something about

801
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 3: disguising that was different than movie makeup, and it's things

802
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:48,839
Speaker 3: like when we're walking down the street, we don't really

803
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 3: study people that well, so you can kind of get

804
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 3: away with shit, so you can make them fast. And

805
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 3: with Jamie we learned not only did they not look

806
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 3: at you, but we can get away with sweat was

807
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 3: actually a good idea. Making people a little shinier, making

808
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:07,680
Speaker 3: that natural feel as opposed to cameras and film stocks

809
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,720
Speaker 3: have changed over the years, of course, high death and everything.

810
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 3: So we've done makeups for camera over the years that

811
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 3: are just they don't look real. Now we're an environment

812
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 3: that it's like an eyebrows out of whack or something

813
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:25,799
Speaker 3: like that. Sometimes that actually does offend the eyeball. So

814
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 3: there's a bit of an odd route to figure out

815
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 3: what disguise is and what the whole point of trying

816
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 3: to fool someone. So we got pretty good at that,

817
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 3: and we're a shot that works fast. And I've just

818
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 3: recalled a couple of things going through. What was that

819
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 3: and what are we doing? And it's just our crazy business.

820
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:50,720
Speaker 1: You've heard our story. Okay, you were there at the time.

821
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:53,839
Speaker 1: What do you think happened to.

822
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:58,279
Speaker 3: Us when it happened? I honestly don't remember if I

823
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 3: witnessed them going into your office or not. I do remember.

824
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 3: I think it was two guys. I wasn't at the

825
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,720
Speaker 3: pool party, so I didn't get any of that.

826
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: But I'm probably still holding a grudge about that.

827
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 3: We meant, I did bred.

828
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:19,799
Speaker 1: I thought you were sending the invite. And do you

829
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: think because this is what people ask us, and you know,

830
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: you're an experienced guy, You've talked to people. People ask us,

831
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: do you think that they were really who they said

832
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 1: they were? People from Office of Naval Intelligence or from

833
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: the intelligence agencies, or do you think that they and

834
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: were they on the level or were they trying to

835
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:42,399
Speaker 1: disinform you or were they something else entirely? Were they

836
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 1: just trying to goof on us? What would your take be?

837
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 3: Some of this is going to go to the fog

838
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:56,839
Speaker 3: of brain. But because I don't, all I remember is

839
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 3: something happened, because there was a bit of a excitement,

840
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 3: you know, enough of that that you know, everybody on

841
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 3: set gossips, right, and so there was enough excitement for

842
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 3: me to kind of hear what And I seem to

843
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 3: recall seeing these guys in the production office. We were

844
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:18,760
Speaker 3: in North Hollywood off Laurel Canyon, was it, yes, Caddy

845
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 3: corner to four taco shops in.

846
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: A former porn warehouse.

847
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there you go.

848
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 3: So I just remember back then just being everything's going on?

849
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 3: What was that? Okay? Next? And then when you guys

850
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 3: started talking about it, I think, Brent, you and I

851
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:41,840
Speaker 3: had met in person a couple of years ago, and

852
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,440
Speaker 3: you had started bringing this up, and it kind of

853
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 3: rattled my brain because first I was like, was I

854
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 3: at that party? I don't think so.

855
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: And I hate to play the report here, but that's

856
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:56,399
Speaker 1: in my blood. That's what I was trained at Okay,

857
00:49:56,440 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 1: I understand, well, I understand that you're in some distance

858
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 1: and I get that, and I'm not going to try

859
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: to push me on that, but I would like you

860
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: describe for us why you feel it's important to maintain

861
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 1: that distance. In other words, you could just say, hey, Bryce, Brent,

862
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: let me just tell you the way it's all gone

863
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 1: down for me.

864
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 3: But you're not.

865
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 1: You're choosing not to do that, So tell me why

866
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: you feel that you still need to choose not to

867
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,439
Speaker 1: do that. What is preventing you from what we would

868
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:27,759
Speaker 1: call full disclosure.

869
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people that were that I worked with,

870
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 3: and I don't want to expose some you probably know,

871
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 3: so that's first and foremost. It's I do a lot

872
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 3: of weird shit, and my entire life doesn't sound real

873
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 3: from it could go on on. I think, Brandon, you

874
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:51,840
Speaker 3: know some of this stuff. It's just for whatever reason,

875
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,719
Speaker 3: I'm just speacon of craziest stuff. But it's not like

876
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 3: I'm crazy, It's just things happen to me. And as

877
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 3: far as is that kind of stuff, not only am

878
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 3: I worried about exposing somebody, but nobody's don't believe any

879
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 3: It's like I can tell you blow of burd blow

880
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 3: by blow some shit that I don't even believe.

881
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 1: One of the most popular episodes we've done is something

882
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 1: called All about the WU, where Brent told something I

883
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:22,880
Speaker 1: love that stories from his life and thing's happened to us.

884
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: So you just said things just happened to me, crazy

885
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:30,440
Speaker 1: things just happened. Okay, give us one example of give

886
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:32,959
Speaker 1: us your WU story. What has happened to you where

887
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 1: you went? Huh, that doesn't quite me. Go yeah, give

888
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:39,360
Speaker 1: us an example of one of those.

889
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 3: That was murdered once and it didn't seem to take.

890
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 1: I guess not here you are here, I think you

891
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:46,480
Speaker 1: better explain that one.

892
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 3: What happened? Well, I was poisoned once, not very well,

893
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 3: and I died. I went to the light and I'm

894
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:58,319
Speaker 3: not bullshitting and all this really happened. And actually there's

895
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 3: been a lot of NDE near death experience people that

896
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 3: just over the years I've bumped into, and for whatever reason,

897
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 3: we start talking about these moments, and it's so trippy

898
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 3: because the classic going to the light story seems to

899
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 3: be with many of them. My experience was I just

900
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 3: faded out. I was at home. I had worked too much,

901
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:27,839
Speaker 3: my roommate had given me a bunch of pills. I

902
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 3: thought they were for my gout. And she left, and

903
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 3: the little time passes, and I started feeling really weird,

904
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 3: and I could tell that the lights were dimming in

905
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 3: my place, and I just picked up a sketch pad.

906
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 3: I started writing, if anybody finds me, that's what's going on.

907
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,280
Speaker 3: I'm starting to feel like I want to go to sleep.

908
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 3: And then I kept writing over and over again, just

909
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 3: to keep me going, don't go to sleep, don't go

910
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 3: to sleep, don't go to sleep, don't go to sleep,

911
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 3: and just forever, and eventually everything went black, and then

912
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 3: a portal of light, whatever you want to call it, Caroline,

913
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,760
Speaker 3: it was up there. And something must have happened because

914
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:13,879
Speaker 3: I woke up in a different place and I had

915
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 3: fluids all over me. I guess I had ejected it

916
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 3: out or something like that, but fucking hell of the hangover.

917
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:24,799
Speaker 3: The bathroom was on the second floor. I couldn't get

918
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 3: to it, I couldn't move. Eventually I found enough energy

919
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 3: to crawl on my hands and knees of marble staircases.

920
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:36,880
Speaker 3: And so, yeah, there's a lot past that, but that

921
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 3: was fifteen years ago. In March that happened, and I

922
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 3: do have evidence now of what I think happened, which

923
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to get into here.

924
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 1: What does your near death experience lead you to believe

925
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:52,880
Speaker 1: about the nature of reality?

926
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 3: That's why I thought your WU episode was so interesting

927
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 3: because I thought it was fascinating. I think it was

928
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 3: that episode, but I thought it was fascinating that you've

929
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:07,280
Speaker 3: strung all the paranormal and all this stuff in many ways,

930
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 3: like this invisible mycilium that's just pieces of us over

931
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 3: the years, Brandon, you and I have mind melded on stuff,

932
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 3: and there's other people that you just feel the mycilia

933
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:23,759
Speaker 3: a little bit, I think, and I always think the

934
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:27,839
Speaker 3: best way to deal with that is to not deal

935
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 3: with it. Just don't even think about it, because how

936
00:54:30,680 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 3: do we know we're a bunch of stupid Homo sapiens

937
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 3: only dragging our knuckles just a few weeks ago. How

938
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 3: do we know that all these pieces of information are correct?

939
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 3: Because there's so much being thrown at humans right now,

940
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 3: it has to be some other feeling. So what the

941
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 3: fuck is that is that? God? I don't think it

942
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 3: is I think it's energy. I think it's us artists

943
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 3: that are really good, writers that are really good I

944
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 3: think brand new and I have hit on this a

945
00:54:56,560 --> 00:55:00,719
Speaker 3: few times. Bryce, We've never had this conversation come on up,

946
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:03,879
Speaker 3: but it's something that I've been relearning with my own

947
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 3: art is for it to really be good, you need

948
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 3: to crawl into it a bunch. You need to, Brent.

949
00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:15,479
Speaker 3: Your writings are always so dimensional and fucking weird, and

950
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 3: just the ideas that you are able to generate with

951
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:22,480
Speaker 3: some of your stories are mind boggling different directions I

952
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 3: would have never thought, at least I didn't think at

953
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:29,239
Speaker 3: the time. And so that whole ability to crawl into

954
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 3: your painting or you're drawing or you're writing in ways

955
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:37,400
Speaker 3: that are like beyond being interrupted by present society, that

956
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:42,120
Speaker 3: are really feeling it. That's true art. That's love, I think,

957
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 3: and I think that kind of is our by Cilia. Interesting.

958
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 1: Hey, Brent, we got to take this thing home. So

959
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 1: let's each ask in the question we've been waiting to ask.

960
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: Let's end up with a question at peace. Why don't

961
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: you go first?

962
00:55:57,080 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 2: Here's my question? Oh boy, you mentioned friend and partner

963
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:04,160
Speaker 2: at one point, somebody I also know Steve Johnson and

964
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 2: back in the nineties. I believe he was asked to

965
00:56:08,200 --> 00:56:12,240
Speaker 2: come and be part of the alien Autopsy show that happened,

966
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 2: to come in and actually validate is this real or

967
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:16,439
Speaker 2: is this not real?

968
00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it was.

969
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my question is you know him. I don't

970
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:25,279
Speaker 2: know the circumstances under which he was invited to do that,

971
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:29,280
Speaker 2: but that to me is as another example of how

972
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:35,359
Speaker 2: whether it's validating an alien for a TV show or

973
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 2: just validating anything at all using your expertise as a

974
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 2: special effects person. Is this something that happens regularly in

975
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 2: the business, and not just with the government, but that

976
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 2: you are asked not to make something that is fake,

977
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:53,560
Speaker 2: but to look at something that might be fake and

978
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 2: say whether it's real, which is a whole different use

979
00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:57,719
Speaker 2: of your expertise.

980
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, that's that is the unspoken uniqueness of people

981
00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:09,200
Speaker 3: that have been doing this kind of design, doing effects

982
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 3: like this, knowing materials, knowing how to fake human skin

983
00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. Yeah, that's definitely something that I've

984
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 3: been approached a few times to suss out if something

985
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 3: is believable or realistic.

986
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:25,880
Speaker 2: And does that I'm interested in that as a skill

987
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:29,040
Speaker 2: in the world that we live in where now everything

988
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 2: that happens on the Internet is immediately deemed AI or

989
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 2: faith or right, And so what do you how where

990
00:57:37,960 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 2: do you see this going?

991
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 3: Right?

992
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 2: Someone like yourself can probably look at something and determine

993
00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 2: using all the skills you have whether something is real

994
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,720
Speaker 2: or not real. But for everybody else that doesn't have

995
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 2: access to todd Masters.

996
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, where are we?

997
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 2: Where are we in terms of determining what's real? Because

998
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 2: we're on the verge of potential disclosure. All these new

999
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 2: pieces of media and things are coming out, and who

1000
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 2: knows if they're going to trot out an alien at

1001
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 2: some point. How do we discern what's real and what's

1002
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:08,160
Speaker 2: not real? What's the best advice you can give us?

1003
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 3: You're right, today's AI is uncanny, and I even get

1004
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 3: fooled by it. And I thought I was pretty good

1005
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:20,960
Speaker 3: with my four eyes. But it's coming so fast and

1006
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 3: so hard and so good. It's really hard to defend

1007
00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 3: yourself as a human being. I think that this stuff

1008
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 3: is dangerous, but it's all hyper sensationalized, that even the

1009
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:39,160
Speaker 3: simplest lower thing is fake and people think it's better

1010
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:43,080
Speaker 3: than the really crazy one. It's just it's near impossible.

1011
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 3: I personally think that we got to Maybe the toothpaste

1012
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:51,160
Speaker 3: might already be out, but it feels like we need

1013
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:51,959
Speaker 3: to reel this back.

1014
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:54,919
Speaker 1: Here's my finale for you. One of the things Brent

1015
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 1: and I have realized over the years is that when

1016
00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:01,360
Speaker 1: you start to create TV series about UFO and aliens

1017
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: or whatever, or just work in Hollywood talking about these things,

1018
00:59:05,480 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: people come up to you and they go, are you

1019
00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:09,760
Speaker 1: the guy that? And then they tell you their story.

1020
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 1: For me, I've had plumbers come up to me and

1021
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:15,920
Speaker 1: tell me harrowing stories about when they were younger and

1022
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 1: things like that. And I remember when I was working

1023
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 1: with stan Lee. Stan didn't actually believe in aliens. He

1024
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:25,520
Speaker 1: loved to write about aliens, but he didn't actually believe

1025
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: that the Flying Saucers or UFOs were aliens. But he

1026
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,520
Speaker 1: did say that his guy who ran the bullpen for him.

1027
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 1: I believe his name was Saul Brodsky. Help I got

1028
00:59:34,520 --> 00:59:37,680
Speaker 1: that right. But he told in detail a story about

1029
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 1: Saul driving to Las Vegas and seeing a light in

1030
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:43,160
Speaker 1: the back of the card just like Spielberg, and then

1031
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:45,200
Speaker 1: this thing goes over his car and it's right in

1032
00:59:45,240 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: front of him, and it's clearly a craft and it's

1033
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:52,040
Speaker 1: pacing him and so Stan told me that story. So

1034
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: my question for you is, you've had a lot of

1035
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 1: time on a lot of projects. You're standing around sets.

1036
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 1: You obviously have an open mind to the creature feature

1037
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:05,680
Speaker 1: aspect of what's going on with the phenomenon. What has

1038
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 1: anyone in Hollywood ever told you one of their personal

1039
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:13,880
Speaker 1: stories that is about the UFO UAP phenomenon, And hopefully

1040
01:00:13,880 --> 01:00:17,520
Speaker 1: they have and you can tell that to us. But regardless,

1041
01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:22,600
Speaker 1: when you comprehend and think about this whole large project

1042
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: that we're involved in, however it turns out, what do

1043
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:30,160
Speaker 1: you think personally is going to be the final explanation

1044
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: or at least the early explanation for the UFO UAP phenomena.

1045
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:37,200
Speaker 1: What do you think we're going to learn in the

1046
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:37,920
Speaker 1: days ahead.

1047
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 3: I think this actually comes from one of your episodes, perhaps,

1048
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:49,120
Speaker 3: but I seem to think that this whole alternate universe, quantum,

1049
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 3: all that stuff plays a part. Maybe that's how the

1050
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:55,680
Speaker 3: maicilium is multi dimensional. I used to do a show

1051
01:00:55,680 --> 01:01:00,040
Speaker 3: called Fringe, which was all about alternate realities, and the

1052
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 3: writers on that show had a lot of fun with

1053
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:05,360
Speaker 3: all aspects of that. But around that time, there was

1054
01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 3: also what the bleep do we know? And other kind

1055
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:14,920
Speaker 3: of alternate explainers. Man, that's such fascinating. There's a point

1056
01:01:14,920 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 3: where I got to go back to work and I

1057
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:20,600
Speaker 3: can't really go down those rabbit holes. So that's kind

1058
01:01:20,600 --> 01:01:22,240
Speaker 3: of where I'm at with the belief of it.

1059
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:25,200
Speaker 1: Listen, Todd, you and I haven't seen each other in

1060
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:27,400
Speaker 1: a few years. We did see each other at some

1061
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:31,280
Speaker 1: conference or something some hotel ev I remember, not a

1062
01:01:31,280 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 1: few years back. Yeah, yeah, but it's always great to

1063
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 1: see you again. Thank you for your quality, wonderful work

1064
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:42,000
Speaker 1: on Dark Skies, helping to bring our fever dream to life.

1065
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:45,479
Speaker 1: That's always been a favorite memory for me. And thanks

1066
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 1: to your vouching. Thank you for vouching for Toby Hooper

1067
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 1: because he's not here a vouch for himself, and to

1068
01:01:51,400 --> 01:01:55,439
Speaker 1: hear another person who knew him and state the same

1069
01:01:55,480 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: thing Brent said is not something small, it's something big

1070
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:01,760
Speaker 1: because of what's going on right now.

1071
01:02:01,800 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 3: So thank you. Yeah, Toby's a hero of mine, and

1072
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:07,160
Speaker 3: I just he's not a like I said, he's not

1073
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:09,480
Speaker 3: a faker, he's not a bullshit or I missed that guy,

1074
01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:11,600
Speaker 3: all right, Todd.

1075
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Speaker 2: Everything Bryce said times two. Thank you so much. It's

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Speaker 2: been really fun and I look forward to having one

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Speaker 2: of our own private conversations later.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, sounds good. Guys.

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Speaker 4: Okay, yank you, Okay, watch these guys b bye.

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Speaker 1: Sound Light and Frequency is an iHeart podcast produced by

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Speaker 1: Stellar Productions. It's executive produced by Nick Johnson and for

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Speaker 1: Stellar Jackie's Abel. Our show's music was written by Anna

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Speaker 1: Stuff and Hamilton Lighthouser, and your hosts and executive producers

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01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:19,120
Speaker 1: are Bryce Abel, That's Me and Brent Friedman Watch the

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Speaker 1: Skies